A Woman Doctor in Antiquity

One day in the 4th century BCE, a woman of Athens named Agnodice was brought before the Areopagus, made up of men full of anger, and began to undress with great calm. The Areopagus was the council of elders that governed the city of Athens. The thing is that Agnodice was dressed as a man, and they accused her because, it seemed, she was seducing the women of Athens. By undressing she showed that she was not a man, and so began her story as a woman doctor. In reality, whether the story of Agnodice is true or not is not well known, because the academics have not agreed on it.

What is true is that she is known as the first woman doctor and gynaecologist in written history. From childhood she had noticed the high mortality of babies and mothers in childbirth, and this made her take an interest in medicine in general and gynaecology in particular. But the laws of Athens at that time did not allow women to involve themselves in medicine, still less in gynaecology — something punished with the death penalty. What is ironic is that it had always been women who were the midwives, or relatives who helped at the birth of a baby, with thousands of years of experience.

But in Athens the men, a little jealous of seeing women so capable, in that century made this senseless law, basing themselves on the teachings of Hippocrates, considered the father of medicine, and allowed only men to practise this profession. Thus the midwives could not work in that century, for fear of the death penalty. The lack of midwives meant that many births ended in the death of the baby or the mother. And many pregnant women, whether out of shyness or for the honour of the family, did not want to be examined by a strange man during childbirth.

So Agnodice, who had set her mind on preventing death and saving pregnant women, cut her hair, dressed as a man and went to Alexandria in Egypt to study medicine with the doctor Herophilus of Chalcedon (Kadıköy – Haydarpaşa) (335-280 BCE). Herophilus was a disciple of Hippocrates and the founder of the medical school of Alexandria; he is also considered the father of anatomy and was apparently the first to take the pulse into account as a medical examination and the first to discover the ovaries. Agnodice, staying as a man and after learning many things about medicine and gynaecology, returned to Athens.

One day in the street she heard the cries of a woman in labour. She entered the woman's house to help her. The neighbours, seeing a man who wanted to enter the room of a woman in labour, began to mistreat her. She at once undressed and showed what was necessary so that they could see she was a woman. So she was accepted and saved the woman from death. And so the fame spread through the whole city of Athens of a man working as doctor and midwife whose help all women, pregnant or not, wanted. This made the men of Athens suspect that a seducer was entering the houses to seduce the wife, the sister or the daughter, who were pretending to be ill in order to be examined by this man, and that is why they brought her before the Areopagus, where she began to undress to show she was a woman.

The crime of being a woman and a doctor carried the death penalty. The angry men of the jury condemned her, giving her the death penalty, and fixed a date for the execution. The women of Athens protested so strongly against this decision, saying they would rather kill themselves than be seen naked by male doctors, that the men changed the law and allowed women to study medicine on condition that they treated only women and not men. Agnodice gained the fame of being the first woman doctor and the first woman gynaecologist, and with this she became the symbol of equality with men and of the creativity of women.

As said above, it is not well known whether this story of Agnodice is true or not. The only time her name appears in writing is in the book of Gaius Julius Hyginus (64 BCE – 17 CE), 'Fabulae and Poetic Astronomy', a book full of stories, some mythological, others seeming true. Fabula means story. This story, myth or not, teaches us that woman aspires to control her own body; the will of the oppressed to fight against the threats of authority; the importance of being a group in order to fight. Note that if the women had not all agreed, the laws of the city would not have changed.

That is why Agnodice is a source of inspiration for the women of today. Source: N. Saldarriaga